You were all warned … and now I have produced it. Due to the enormous success of my ‘Banana Custard Cream Pie‘, I have decided another version was required, albeit a cheats version. Shocking? Maybe. But who cares? When this tart hits your lips you shall be silenced and forget about the fact that the filling is store bought. That’s right, I said store bought … deal with it.
There are a couple (okay, there’s more than just a couple) of reasons I decided to go down this road of tart making …
a) Not everyone can bake or is confident in the kitchen.
b) I love this yoghurt so much I wanted it in a tart.
c) Tastes like cheesecake but is probably lower in calories than the real deal. Hooray for yoghurt!! (I say “…probably lower in calories”; I don’t have the math calculations or the statistics to back up my claim, but I am assuming it is).
d) It’s cost effective.
Sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the day to make desserts from scratch … especially if you have guests coming round and you are busy trying to get the place looking spic-n-span, making sure the flowers are arranged juuuuust so, and juggling kitchen duties all at the same time. Make ahead desserts are a cool idea but this one is even better because the failure rate is very low. Ever had that awful moment when you are banking your life on getting the dessert done perfectly right and it backfires on you? It is now midnight and all the shops are closed; you have run out of eggs and there isn’t any more time to get a new one done tomorrow coz the in-laws will be at your doorstep by noon. Stress!!!!! Now you’re in a bad mood and everybody knows this gets directly transferred onto the rest of your cooking. Don’t do it. It just means everyone ends up having vanilla ice cream and fruit for dessert the next day.
Well, FEAR NO MORE, for this is my nifty solution to all my readers, both skilled and unskilled in the art of dessert making. One word: Gelatine.
Yes, it is that simple. Take your favourite tub of yoghurt, be it full fat, low-fat or no fat, melt some gelatine and mix everything through. Pour into prepared tart shell and voila!! Top with your favourite fruit and you’ll be tucking away at a healthful dessert with much less calories (only if you choose the low-fat variety of course). Guilt free eating … hurrah! C’mon, you gotta be happy about that, eh? Plus it looks beeeau-ti-fuuul, and nobody will tell you otherwise.
Start off with the pie crust. This will be the only baking you will require. As always I use a sweet pie dough to make all the bases of my dessert tarts. This dough is soft and pliable, so either chill it in the fridge for an hour before you roll it out, or do what I do ~ dump everything into the pie tin and using well-floured hands, smoosh it down evenly to cover the base and sides of the tin. Then place parchment paper over the top and smooth out any bumps, making sure to get right into the crease where the base meets the walls.
Fill the tin with baking beans (on top of the parchment paper), or dry lentils and bake blind at 190ºC for up to 12 minutes. Then remove the paper and all the beans and return the tin to the oven to dry out and cook the center thoroughly. Then leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
For the filling, pour out all the yoghurt into a bowl. Heat up the cream and melt the pre-bloomed gelatine sheets until dissolved. Pour melted gelatine in with the yoghurt and stir thoroughly. Pour everything into the cooled tart shell and chill in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours, but best to chill overnight.
Next day just decorate with freshly whipped chantilly cream and fresh strawberries.
Ingredients:
- Sweet pastry dough
- 700 mls strawberry cheesecake yoghurt
- 5 sheets gelatine
- 50 mls cream
- 200 mls whipped cream for topping
- fresh strawberries, for topping.
Its wonderful to be able to make this dessert piled high with the sweetest of strawberries. The store is absolutely bursting with punnets of this stuff, selling for € 1,30 each. The smell of sweet berries makes me giddy every time, and I start imagining all manner of yummy ways to eat them … my favourite of course being with a bowl of cream. Even as I speak (type) now I am already thinking up other ways to feature strawberries … and I fully intend on returning to the store on the weekend to purchase more of them.
In the meantime enjoy this recipe and I hope this quick dessert makes it to your summer table soon.
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